Because the Night

there's a lot i want

"I don't really hike," Lily confessed as they stepped onto the rough path, barely distinguishable from the rest of the forest floor. The "path" was just a narrow patch of dirt between rocks, sometimes blending into the rocks entirely 

"Think of it as walking, but more vertical," Diego said. 

"And also a lot harder. And more aimless." 

"Weren't you the one who invited me on this hike?" Diego asked, turning around to see Lily, only a few steps behind him. He caught her at an awkward moment. She was resting her hands on a tree trunk to try and shimmy down a particularly steep drop. 

"Oh, jeez, where is your technique?" He groaned, and before she could know what he was doing, he picked her up from the waist and carried her down onto the ground. "Next time you decide to break your ankle, ask me first. I'll step in." 

Before, Lily had been feeling unsteady. Now, she was just about ready to faint. But somehow, she kept walking further and further away from civilization. The sound of the birds masked any hum of civilization emanating from the mountain house. The branches covered up the sky. There was no world but this one. 

"I'll try to avoid breaking my ankle. How could I dance in a cast?" 

"Shoot. She figured out why I wanted to rescue her," he said, throwing his hands up in mock dramatics. "Don't think I'm always a knight in shining armor."

"In no world are tennis clothes armor," she responded. 

She could do this all day. She liked this melody — the back and forth of their banter.

"In no world is swinging from a tree trunk good hiking technique," he said. 

"Fair. But I didn't grow up with all...this. My mom's more into 'foodie trips' than venturing into the woods. And by that, I mean, we'll drive to different cities around here and try different French pastries. She is obsessed with breakfast food." 

"That's very specific." 

"Yeah, well — you've met her." 

"Will she miss you, by the way? Will she know you disappeared?" 

The thought hadn't occurred to Lily, which is how she knew she had come under a certain spell. The spell was contained in his body. Towering over hers. Leaning into her air space. Oh, lord. 

"I hope not," she answered, honestly. "I hope she's too entranced with Al to notice. We'll probably hear her shriek down here, if she does." 

Diego laughed. A warm laugh, not like the ones he did in tango class, which were partly for show. He was laughing because she said something funny. She wanted to keep saying funny things. 

"Did you grow up doing this?" Lily asked. She was trying to play dumb about the whole Highland Royalty thing.

"Doing what? Stealing girls from their mothers?" He laughed again, but shorter, smaller, just for him. She wondered what the inside joke was. 

"No! Hiking." 

"Yeah, I grew up around here," he said. "I know this area well."

Lily managed to say, "That's cool," instead of what she really wanted to say, which was, "Fess up! I know all about you!" 

"So where are you taking me?" she continued. 

"It's one of my favorite spots. Not too far now. See where the path curves? Just past that is a crazy, well — no other way to describe it but a crazy rock." 

"Sounds...exciting." 

"This is why I can't take people to this spot! I just sound like a total nerd. I don't even have a joint to smoke to make it cool or anything. It's purely a rock."

"But it's your rock." 

They were nearing the corner. "It's where I used to go and think, Think with a capital T, when I was a teenager," he said. "One of the few places I could be alone. 

"But you're not alone now," she said .They kept walked, and finally rounded the corner. He was right: It was quite a rock. Rocks, more like it. A stack of flat rocks, piled super high. They were like a ladder, inviting you to climb as far as you could (or dared). 

He didn't say anything, but sat on the bottom rock, the largest. Some flint jutted out on the edge. 

"I'm not alone, you're right. I don't really want to be, either," he said. 

What did that mean?

He looked at her intently. She, panicking, pretended to be interested in the rocks now. She looked at the top, where the equivalent of the star at the top of the Christmas tree topped the entire structure off. She knew if she said another word she would shatter the sense of possibility in the air, and destroy any chance of something happening next. 

And yet she wasn't brave enough to meet his eyes. She was scared of what she'd find there. 

So he spoke for her. 

"What?" 

"The rock," she said, walking closer. "It's the kind of rock that makes you...Think. With a capital T." 

He laughed, as she hoped he would. She kept walking toward him. "Makes me think about Time, and the woods, and all the people who saw this rock before me. Or sat here as kids." 

She stopped right in front of him. For a change, she was towering over him. 

"Well, I'm no kid anymore," he said. He was right: He was young, but there was something weathered about him. It was like the experiences of the past decade left marks on his face, more than the years. Lily wondered what the long 20s would have in store of her. He was wondering the same thing, it seemed. "You might be still be a kid, though." 

She cringed. Maybe he didn't mean to make her curl into herself, but he did. Diego got her right where she was most soft and anxious.

In many ways she felt that one foot was still in the grassy plains of childhood. Now the plates were shifting farther apart, and she'd have to leap into the adult world if she were going to survive. Certainly, she was lucky to be straddling those worlds for as long as she had. But where would she land? The cold, inhospitable plains of the badlands? The boring, unending terrain of a midwestern highway? What did adulthood look like? How would the ground feel under her feet? Like freedom, or like falling? 

If people like Diego were there to pull her onto the other side quicker, she'd let them. She'd feel free, and she'd fall, and be wrapped up in newness. 

She looked down at him, and it felt a bit like jumping off a cliff. 

Right now, his face was speckled with sun and stubble. His eyes were brown in the dark and not brown in the light, but also green, also yellow. He looked up and waited for an answer. The answer she gave him would be the signal determining everything that comes next. She knew this now. 

"I'm not a kid," she said. "Although maybe compared to this rock, we both are."

He smiled at her and reached up for her cheek. This is it. This is it! She thought to herself, incredulously. Lily, you did it. You put the dominos in a row and blam, they're all going. You are a star. Those full, beautiful lips are going to be on yours, and you will pretty much give up English just to speak their language, if that's what it takes. She waited to feel his legs stand up, or his arms pull her down. 

That's not what happened next. 

"It's a shame I can't do what I want," he said. "Because there's a lot I want."